


Recovering

by JustAnAnxiousKid



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Connor’s trying, Gen, The bit about Connor and Miguel is really vaguely mentioned, Zoe and Alana’s relationship is kinda implied, and he’s having a bad time in the process, because I say so, but he’ll get better in the future, but not explicitly stated - Freeform, go figure, if you squint you’ll miss it, it’s a Connor centric fic!, it’s just taking a while, it’s not a huge part of the story though, really hard, so if you squint you’ll miss that too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 08:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17382905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnAnxiousKid/pseuds/JustAnAnxiousKid
Summary: “Connor still had bad days.”But bad days happen with everyone, and he’s still improving bit by bit.





	Recovering

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in November lmao

    Connor still had bad days.

  
    That was a given, anyways. Recovery wasn’t quick after all. No one said it would be. That didn’t stop him from hating the days that he felt like he was going backwards.

  
    The issue was when a bad day turned into a bad week, because that meant it was a pattern. He hadn’t had full on bad week in a while. Then, it turned into two bad weeks, and he felt lost. He was supposed to tell his therapist about this kind of stuff, but sometimes it was hard to articulate what the problem was. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of it all, but he felt off. Like everything was on a black and white screen that he was watching from the outside. It was numbing.

  
    Eventually, two turned into three and three turned into four. That made it a bad month. He spent most of it locked away in his room, trying to figure out what was wrong.

  
    It almost made him feel guilty. He hadn’t been texting Evan or Jared much, and he had been avoiding talking to his family for the time. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to them, but he couldn’t. It was too much work to sit them all down (even more if he did it one person at a time) and then find the right words to describe how he felt. He wasn’t sure he would be able to find the right words even if he tried.

  
    He was pretty sure everyone could tell something was wrong. The pitying looks they gave him in passing was hint enough.

  
    Everyone showed it differently. His mom tried to get him out of his room, offered to take him out for some kind of mother-son bonding thing. He wanted to say yes so she would smile, but he knew if he went along with whatever she had planned he would just drag the whole night down. He usually just pretended he had homework to do.

  
    Zoe was pretty obvious about it which was weird in itself. She was the more reserved one in the family, never the one to outwardly say how she felt. He supposed she still wasn’t doing that. So, he was surprised when he would pass her in the hallway on his way into his room and she would give him a look. See, there were never any words exchanged, she never actually said anything, but those green eyes said it all. He would just go into his room and blast music through his ear buds, trying to forget it ever happened.

  
    Then there was his dad.

  
    Connor still wasn’t sure how he felt about his dad’s reaction. It had only been two times, but the man had sat him down and actually asked him to talk about it. He had even tried to ask questions in order to prompt him to say what was wrong, but every time Connor only answered with a mumbled “I dunno”, and the conversation ended there.

  
    Connor was eighteen now, though. It was mid January, and midterms were just about to begin, and he was recovering.

  
    Recovering didn’t always mean happy days. It didn’t always mean smiling and going out and talking to people. Sometimes, it was the little things. Sometimes it was something as little as Connor going downstairs and eating dinner with everyone, because he hadn’t done that since freshman year.

  
    The thing was, he wasn’t sure his family understood that, so it was no wonder that the car ride to school with Zoe in the passenger seat (another victory, he was driving) was extremely tense.

  
    “Why won’t you just tell us what’s wrong?” She asked, leaning her head against the window.

  
    He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, trying to stay stoic. He honestly should’ve expected this to come from her at some point, it was destined to happen eventually. Larry always used Zoe when he wasn’t sure what to do next.

  
    “I dunno, Zo.”

  
    It wasn’t even three words. Two words and her name, that’s all he had to say.

    “Well how don’t you know?!” She shouted, turning to him angrily. “I just don’t get it, Connor! We’re trying to help and all you keep saying is ‘ _I dunno’_?! How can we help if that’s all you’re giving us?!”

  
    “Just drop it, Zoe.” He mumbled, pulling up to the school.

  
    “I’m not gonna ‘just drop it’.” She huffed, pulling her bag onto her lap. “You’re such an asshole sometimes, honestly. You make it impossible to do anything.”

  
    Just like that, as he parked the car she made her exit. The sad part was it didn’t even hurt anymore. He didn’t care when someone was angry with him, because he was almost numb to the pain of it.

  
    With mechanical motions, Connor grabbed his bag and made his way into the building. For a while at the beginning of the year, after everything that happened, people acted a bit different. Sometimes underclassmen would smile at him or wave considering they didn’t know better. Of course, all good things must come to an end. It only took until maybe October for everything to go back to how it had been when he returned back to public school. The second his combat boot hit the tiled floor, everyone split like a sea of fish spotting their predator.

  
    He moved without processing it, adding and removing textbooks and folders from his locker. When he shut the door, he was surprised to see someone else standing behind it.

  
    “Connor! Hi.” Alana chirped, beaming up at him.

  
    It wasn’t that he wasn’t friends with Alana (what was the word she usually used? “ _Acquaintances_ ”?), and it wasn’t as though he hated the girl or anything. He just didn’t normally talked to her. Or, at least, not one on one. Of course he had talked to her before, and of course they had hung out before, but it was usually with Jared, Evan and Zoe. Never just the two of them. They were like polar opposites, after all. Alana was bright and full of life whereas Connor was like a dark cloud looming over everyone with an angry aura.

  
    “I just wanted to know if you knew where Zoe went to this morning?” She asked, bringing him out of his thoughts. “We normally meet up in the band room because she brings her guitar there before the first bell, but she wasn’t there.”

  
    Of course she was there for Zoe. Why wouldn’t Alana Beck be there for Zoe?

  
    “I don’t know, Alana.” He muttered, trying to shove his way past the shorter girl. “Maybe you should try texting her.”

  
    “Oh, I did!” She replied, turning on her heels to walk with him. “She didn’t answer, so I wanted to see if you knew.”

  
    “Yup, that’s great.” He shot back, hoping she would get the clue that he wasn’t in the mood to socialize.

  
    “Well, anyways,” she continued, “off to AP lit we go! I heard from an acquaintance that we have a writing assignment today.”

  
    “Mhm.” He hummed, giving her a dirty look from the corner of his eye. She sure was persistent, wasn’t she?

  
    “It’s apparently not too bad, actually, so maybe we could—”

  
    “Alana?” He cut her off, stopping in his tracks and looking down at the confused girl.

  
    “Yeah?” She questioned. “Is something wrong?”

  
    “Look,” he started, taking a deep breath, “just because Zoe isn’t here doesn’t mean we have to play the pity game and hang out with me, okay? Go call her again or something until class starts. You don’t need to hang out with me just because no one else will.”

  
    Connor had honest to god thought that would be the end of the conversation. He had thought he got his point across clear as day, and that he would be able to just walk away and avoid talking to anyone else for the rest of the day. He truly though that was what would happen. Of course, things rarely actually went to plan.

  
    “You know, she tells me things.” Alana said, matching his stride.

  
    Connor rolled his eyes, trying to quicken his pace. He should have the advantage with the longer legs, after all.

  
    “She tells me when something happens that upsets her, because she wants an outside opinion on the subject.”

  
    “Okay, yup, that’s great.” He muttered, trying to widen the gap between them.

  
    Apparently, the shorter girl was having none of it.

  
    “She didn’t even need to tell me you were feeling down.”

  
    Even if Alana hadn’t grabbed his arm in that moment, he would’ve been frozen from shock.

    “You know, Evan and Jared keep asking me if I’ve been talking to you since apparently you’re avoiding them.” She shot, looking up at him. Her eyes looked like she was challenging him to say otherwise.

  
    “I’m not avoiding them.” Was all he could muster. “It’s complicated, alright?”

  
    “Then you tell them that.” She finished, letting go and making her way to her desk.

  
    Recovering looked like a lot of things, and sometimes it could even be getting called out for his bullshit. Connor knew that, of course he did. It was basically what he paid his therapist to do. See, he just didn’t expect it from Alana Beck. So, if he couldn’t focus for the rest of the class, at least he had something to blame.

  
    In fact, he used the excuse all the way up until lunch, because when your answer to _“what’s wrong?”_ is _“something happened that I didn’t expect”_ , most people don’t question it. You know, besides Jared fucking Kleinman.

  
    “You look like you just got denied a good fucking.”

  
    Connor simply turned and gave him a blank look that he hoped got across that no, that wasn’t the case, and he should probably shut up. Evan on the other hand scolded the boy, Zoe snorted, and Alana simply looked slightly amused as she pulled out her lunch. Great.

  
    “All I’m saying is maybe if someone dicked him down, he’d stop frowning so much!” Jared stated, pointing to the tallest boy. “Does that make me a bad person to point it out? Because I don’t think it does.”

  
    “Jared!” Evan complained, hitting his arm lightly with a disapproving frown. “Stop that. You’re being mean.”

  
    It was almost amusing, actually, how Jared just laughed in response. In reality, Connor was well aware of the fact that Jared was just playing around. He knew that it was just how the boy acted, and no matter what he probably wouldn’t just suddenly change. On a normal day, he probably would just brush the joke off.

  
    But, alas, it wasn’t really a normal day.

  
    The thing was, the joke stung a bit. It wasn’t meant to, but it did. None of them knew about _him_ though, so there was no way it was intentional. Connor just needed to take a deep breath, and keep repeating that to himself.

  
    “Well he’s not denying it!”

  
    Actually, scratch that idea. Maybe it was time to get his point across.

  
    “What I need and don’t need is none of your fucking business!” He stated, slamming his fist onto the table and glaring daggers at the short boy.

  
    The smile on the wiseass’ face didn’t even falter when everyone else at the table looked between them in shock. Why had he become friends with him, again?

  
    “Maybe, for once, if you just shut your _goddamn_ mouth, I wouldn’t be in such a pissy mood!”

  
    He didn’t stick around to see his reaction to that statement, because quite frankly, he didn’t want to. There was no way he could sit there and actually talk to any of them about the subject, because then he would just remember how stupid he was, and he’d go even deeper into the hole he had already dug himself into. There was just no winning for Connor today.

    Obviously, recovering had to have ups and downs. Today just happened to be a down, but Connor knew he was still improving. Otherwise, he would’ve stuck around to have a screaming match with Jared.

  
    Was he happy that he had yelled? No, of course not. He didn’t want to act like that anymore. Was he glad that he had left before it had gotten worse? Absolutely. That was a big thing for Connor, being able to have enough self control to walk away from something before the situation blew out of proportion. He counted it as a small victory.

  
    That’s the thing about getting better. You can find even the smallest of accomplishments in a bad day if you search for them, because ninety percent of the time, they’re there. They might not always be so easy to find, but they exist, and that was what mattered.

  
    Even at dinner that night, though he may have gotten into an argument with his parents (meaning mostly his dad) after Zoe told them how he lashed out at lunch, he still had the small victory of holding down his meal. He also hadn’t raised his voice, so that counted for something to him, too. It was baby steps, but sometimes Connor needed baby steps in order to get what he was trying to get.

  
    Sometimes, recovering even meant some alone time to process the day. So he took his sketchbook, opened up his bedroom window, and climbed onto the roof to look at the setting sun.

  
    The world sucked, no doubt about it, but just like Connor had small victories, the world had them too. Even though there was war, and poverty, and all this homophobia bullshit, the world was improving.

  
    Everything was just baby steps, and that was okay.

    When he felt his phone buzz in his back pocket, he almost didn’t take it out. But, of course, curiosity got the better of him.

  
    _Five new messages from Evan H._

 _  
_ _Hey!_

 _  
_ _Or, hi?_

 _  
_ _Scratch that, let me start over._

 _  
_     Connor cracked a small smile over that. He could never get over how even when texting, the smaller boy was always rambling.

  
    _We all know you’re going through a tough spot right now. Yes, I do mean “we”. Jared, Alana, Zoe and I can all see it. I think everyone’s too scared to say anything because we don’t want to make you upset for pointing out that you took a step back. That’s okay, though! I actually talked to Dr. Sherman about it a bit, because I wanted to know how he thought I should phrase what I’m about to say. So, well, here goes nothing._

 _  
_     To say Connor was shocked from what he read next was an understatement. Jesus Christ.

  
    _There’s gonna be bad days. We all have them. I have them all the time, and so does Zoe. I think ours are pretty obvious. Jared and Alana are better at hiding it, though. Jared uses humor and Alana just does a ton of work. You’re like them in a way, and you try to hide it by hiding yourself away physically. You just have to know we’re all here for you, all four of us. We want you to be happy, and I promise none of us care how long it takes. You don’t have to be afraid that you’re gonna mess everything up, trust me. I know that fear. I know it’s scary to put yourself out there and to try and trust people, but please try. We’re not gonna let you fall if you just give us the chance._

 _  
_     Connor sat there on the roof, curled in on himself to seem as small as he possibly could. Recovering was a lot of things, and it was a long journey. Every small step counted for something, and Connor was aware of that.   

  
    No matter what, he still thought becoming friends and restoring relations was the greatest victory he had yet to achieve.

  
    He wasn’t sure what he did to deserve his families forgiveness. He didn’t know how he had convinced Evan, Jared and Alana to consider him a friend. Connor didn’t even know how he had made it this far into the school year, if he had to be completely honest.

  
    The thing was, he had.

  
    He made friends, he gained back his sisters trust, he made his mom happy when he could, and he was improving himself for the better. Connor may have had a tough couple of years, and he may of wished that it all would just stop on the first day of school.

  
    He just wouldn’t regret trying his damn best to make the most of however much time he has left, and spending that time with the people he cared about.

  
    _Thank you. I’m trying._

 _  
_ _Message, sent._

**Author's Note:**

> So, I kinda like this story. And I hope other people do, too!! It took a while to actually finish writing, but I’m glad I went back to it.
> 
> As always, my instagram is @just.an.anxious.kid so feel free to bug me there! I might be too anxious to answer sometimes though, because I’m what normal people call awkward!!
> 
> But that’s besides the point. 
> 
> Sincerely, me.


End file.
